Vintage Vibes turns Bury station into something you simply do not see anywhere else

For one weekend every year, Bury Bolton Street stops feeling like a railway station and starts feeling like something much harder to describe.

There are tribute acts on stage, Northern Soul filling the air, people dancing beside railway tracks, vintage stalls and trains carrying festivalgoers up and down the line all day long.

Then there is the moment that really catches your attention.

The main stage sits in the station car park beside the platforms.

Nowhere else would you expect to see it. A live festival stage built beside a working heritage railway where steam engines and diesel trains continue rolling in and out while music plays into the evening. It feels slightly surreal the first time you see it, but that is exactly what makes Vintage Vibes special.

The East Lancashire Railway’s annual Vintage Vibes Festival returned today with another packed weekend of music and nostalgia. This year’s line up includes Queen and Cher tributes, Northern Soul favourites, Motown classics, Beatles hits and a heavy dose of 1980s music.

But while the performances pull people through the gates, the festival itself says something bigger about Bury and the railway.

The East Lancashire Railway does not exist because of a large entertainment company or a major corporation. It survives because of people giving their time as volunteers.

Volunteers help maintain locomotives, restore stations, welcome passengers, work behind the scenes and keep the railway moving. The festival itself depends on the same community spirit.

Just like these two volunteers, that's currently keeping me entertained in the backstage green room train carriage. 

Pictured on the left, Dorothy has volunteered for 16 years at the ELR, and on the right, Christine has volunteered for 3 years.

You feel it everywhere.

You see it in station staff helping families find platforms. You hear it from people directing visitors between performances. You notice it in the atmosphere around the line.

For visitors from Rochdale and across the borough, there is another reason it works so well.

Your ticket does not just get you into a field or a fenced off venue. It gives unlimited travel across the East Lancashire Railway network for the entire day.

You can start in Heywood, stop in Ramsbottom, head into Rawtenstall and return to Bury without paying again. Entertainment is spread around different stations, giving people a reason to explore rather than stand in one place all day.

On Sunday, 24th, you can also head up to Ramsbottom for the Rotary's Duck Race just outside of the station, and then hop on back over to Bolton Street Station.

At a time when ticket prices for larger festivals can stretch into hundreds of pounds before food and travel are even considered, there is something refreshing about paying one price and getting trains, live entertainment and an entire heritage railway network included.

That probably explains why the first Vintage Vibes event proved so popular last year.

It is not trying to compete with giant music festivals.

Instead it does something different.

For one weekend, it turns a railway into a festival site and turns stations into destinations.

And somehow, standing beside a stage in a station car park while trains arrive in the background starts to feel completely normal.

That only really happens in Bury.